Transcript
Jonathan Shuttlesworth (Podcast Host) (0:02)
Welcome to the Jonathan Shuttlesworth Podcast. To stay connected, go to revival today.com. and now, here is evangelist Jonathan.
Jonathan Shuttlesworth (Evangelist / Main Speaker) (0:13)
Hebrews chapter seven, verse one. This is a revelation from the word of God that changed my life. And I'm not saying that lightly. It changed my. My giving and my tithing. The church that I went to before I started pastoring, I was an evangelist. But obviously on Sunday I would go to church. Sometimes they would not receive an offering or a tithe. They were like, very low key on giving. And I would bring my tithe up in an envelope and lay it on the altar if they didn't receive one. I don't mean in the middle of the service to like. Like, as my way of saying, you should have taken an offering. But before I left, after everybody's leaving, I would just go and lay mine up on the altar. And because this. What changed. What I'm gonna read to you is what changed it for me from tithing because the church is receiving the tithe, to tithing because the tithe is helping me. There's a scripture I haven't gotten to yet, as we've done this series on giving. I don't care if that baby wants to give or not. I'm gonna preach this message on tithing. It was a joke. Don't turn against the child because offerings were received. What's with you people today? Everybody. Everybody needs to switch to decaf. So I was raised that you. The tithes and offerings are like a necessary evil. The pastor kind of apologizes about it. Make sure everybody knows. No one has to give. This is something we do. Because how many know the church has bills just like everybody else. But this spiritual. Hebrews 7:1, this Melchizedek. By the way, what's the title of this book? It's not a trick question. You can read it. Hebrews. So it's written to Jewish Christians, and there haven't been Christians that long because Jesus had risen from the dead just a couple decades ago. So almost everyone they're writing to had grown up in Judaism where tithing was strictly enforced by the Pharisees. So when you hear people say that tithing's been done away with, then what it would need to say in Hebrews 7 is basically one verse. You all heard, we don't have to tithe anymore, Right? Good. Then on to verse two. But they actually give one of the best revelations on tithing. When people say something's done away with in the Bible, anything that was established in the old covenant and tithing as we're going to read predates the Old Covenant. But anything that was established in the Old Covenant doesn't have to be reestablished in the New Covenant. It has to be done away with in the New Covenant if you're not to do it anymore. For example, if murder is established, that thou shalt not murder, if it's not mentioned again in the New Testament, it's not a license to murder. It's just same with homosexuality and all that. That's called bad Bible interpretation. And say, well, that was only in the Old Testament and it's not mentioned that much in the New Testament. When things are done away with actually in this book in Hebrews, can anybody tell me something that was done away with that they deal with in the Book of Hebrews? Blood sac. Where'd you come from? Blood sacrifice. And it's not done away with in one verse. Or you have to kind of interpret a verse a certain way. You basically have three strong chapters telling about how we no longer use the blood of bulls and goats because Christ carried his own blood into the holy of holies. In the Book of Acts, Peter has a vision. How come when we go out to eat after church today, if we want to order shrimp cocktail or lobster tail, sometimes you'll hear comedians say that. These people say, believe in the Bible. Then how come you eat shrimp? I can answer if you'd like the answer. Because Peter had a vision of every animal that you were forbidden to eat. The Old Testament lowered before him and a voice said, peter, rise, kill and eat. And Peter responded, I will not eat anything that is unclean, that's forbidden by our Jewish customs. And the voice of God spoke and said, don't call unclean that which I have cleansed. And the Bible says this same vision was repeated three times. Anything we don't have to do anymore from the Old Covenant, you don't have to piece verses together. It specifically told you, well, not only is tithing Hebrews is in the New Testament, you have, in my opinion, a much better teaching on tithing in Hebrews 7 than you have in Malachi chapter or. Yeah, Malachi chapter 3, Hebrews 7:1. This Melchizedek was king of the city of Salem and also a priest of God Most High. When Abraham was returning home after winning a great battle against the kings, Melchizedek met him and blessed him. This is in Genesis, chapter 14. Now think of this. Abraham's tithe here was not a personal tithe. It was a corporate tithe. He led 318 men out to battle. They Took the plunder of war. That's how you made your money back then. There was no, there was no check. Getting fired off to your house on the 1st and 15th. What you captured was yours. You remember the king of Sodom said, you can keep my portion too. And Abram said, I will not take so much as a shoe latchet from the king of Sodom, lest the king of Sodom say I made Abram rich. That was my scripture for not taking any PPP money during COVID I actually was going to take it because an older pastor called me who I like. He said, you're crazy if you don't take this. Trump's doing it to help churches. And I went into the office to tell Patrick to look into it and that verse popped up. Don't take so much as a shoe latchet from the king of Sodom, lest the king of Sodom say he made Abram rich. And so when this church goes up in Pittsburgh, if the head of PNC bank and whatever the other banks are floating around Pittsburgh, if they all get together one day and say, did you hear about that church that built that 3,000 seater? Did you give them the money for it? No, I thought you did, Gary. They could smoke their cigars, but none of them can sit there and in arrogance say, we gave that preacher or that church the money. They're going to have to admit that there's an El Shaddai that still does for his people today what he did in the Bible. Can you say amen? And so Abram would not take from the king of Sodom. Then the Bible says he took a tenth before he paid his men. He took a tenth of everything he captured. And Melchizedek came. And it's going to tell you here, it's basically hinting that, that it was Christ. It at least was Christ in a picture, if not an Old Testament appearance of Christ. Anybody know what Melchizedek brought Abram before he gave him the tithe? Bread and wine. Bread signifying the word of God, wine signifying the Holy Spirit. That's a, that's why ministers today stand in Melchizedek's priesthood. That though the Levitical priesthood has been done away with, the Bible says Melchizedek remains a priest forever. And so it's, it's an order. A minister is to come and feed people the word of God. The more bread you feed, the more comes in.
